The richest person in Chinese entertainment

Chapter 276: The $4000 million acquisition, the first step

Zhang Chen spent the entire month of April on the crew.

During this period, the only thing that really deserved Zhang Chen's attention was the arrest of members of the Zero Point Band and Sha Baoliang in a bar on April 4.

Because of this incident, these two people also successfully entered the blacklist of Chenguang Entertainment.

Another thing is the extramarital affair between Teacher Zhao and the female health care physician, and the abuse that resulted in her pregnancy and miscarriage.

The matter was brought to court.

It was the "Rao Zhao lawsuit" that completely shattered the image of Mr. Zhao, the perfect old idol for generations, and also allowed everyone to have a more objective understanding of celebrities.

When time entered May, Zhang Chen finally waited for the person he had been waiting for for a long time.

"Mr. Goodger, welcome to China."

In the special reception room of the Morning Glory Group's headquarters building, Zhang Chen received Ben Goodger who came from the United States.

He is the project representative for Firefox, which is the Firefox browser.

Because the Mozilla browser project was hindered by the commercial demands of Netscape Communications Corporation, the name was changed to Firefox.

This browser has undergone two years of iteration and has initially formed the foundation for full market promotion.

“Leon, I didn’t expect you to pay attention to a small business like ours.”

"Hahaha, mainly because I'm optimistic about the browser you developed. I just wonder if you're interested in the market of more than one billion people?"

At present, China’s biggest advantage over foreign companies is undoubtedly its huge population base.

Where there is population, there are users.

Moreover, China is currently in a state of rapid development.

And Internet companies are constantly going to Nasdaq to go public.

It also allows the United States to see the huge prospects of the Internet in mainland China.

An emerging market with a user base and promising prospects for Internet development is a piece of fat meat that foreign Internet companies want to take a bite of.

"If I wasn't interested, I wouldn't have come to China, right?"

Ben Goodger also speaks the truth.

"Then, are you interested in moving the headquarters and database to China?"

"what?"

Ben Goodger really didn't expect that the big star in front of him would have such a big appetite.

He was thinking of opening up a market in China.

And Zhang Chen wanted it all.

"There are so many Internet companies in the United States. It shouldn't be easy for you to develop your business, right?"

"Uh" Ben Goodger smiled awkwardly. He was really speechless because of Zhang Chen's sudden attack.

He came to China to discuss business and was really not ready to talk about moving the company.

However, he quickly adjusted his mindset: "We do want to come to the Chinese market."

No matter what, now that we are here, we have to see how sincere Zhang Chen is.

If Zhang Chen can offer conditions that attract him, then moving to China is not impossible.

After all, they are a group of people who failed in the competition with Microsoft. The people who were originally responsible for browser development at Netscape are now only living on the 200 million US dollars donated by Netscape. If they can have new sponsors, their project development will be smoother.

"I want the ownership of Firefox. You can state your conditions."

"This" Ben Goodger was very entangled, "I am not prepared at all. Maybe Leon already has an idea. Why not tell me?"

"When your Mozilla Foundation was established last year, it was to enable you to survive without Netscape, but the funds donated by Netscape to you will run out one day, right?"

In fact, if things develop normally, around August next year, the Mozilla Foundation will establish the Mozilla company to undertake software development and distribution plans, and will also handle some commercial collaborations to bring income to the foundation and the company.

For example, in the future, Firefox will sign a contract with Google by default and use Google as the default search engine, which will bring in a considerable amount of income.

After all, Firefox will be among the top three or even the first in market share in the world in the future.

At the same time, it has also won numerous honors in countries around the world.

However, these remarkable achievements will all happen in the "future".

The Mozilla Foundation behind the current Firefox browser consists of only three people, and its future is truly uncertain.

Zhang Chen's move was undoubtedly another interception operation that he had done several times before.

"I value your product at $500 million." Zhang Chen raised two fingers, "I will invest $2 million in you and give me 2000% of the shares."

"Leon, this is impossible!"

Zhang Chen listened to the other party's urgent objection and felt that it sounded familiar.

He often heard such voices when he was negotiating with others.

From Zhou Jianhui of Warner Music to Kevin of Warner Productions, it seems that every time when conducting business negotiations with foreigners, Zhang Chen always habitually asks for a huge amount of money.

By this calculation, he was still too gentle towards Xiao Ma Ge, and basically met all his requests.

However, it was also because Xiao Ma Ge asked for too little that Zhang Chen was not interested in bargaining.

Although the initial funding of the foundation behind the Firefox browser was only 200 million US dollars, this browser was developed by a project team established by technical backbones of Netscape.

That’s right, this is what Netscape relied on to make a comeback.

But unfortunately, Netscape has now been sold to Microsoft for more than 7 million US dollars.

The project team established the foundation in order to distance themselves from Netscape and to prevent the browser they had worked so hard to develop from being eliminated by Microsoft's IE browser.

So in terms of product maturity, or product value, Firefox is definitely worth more than the 500 million US dollars that Zhang Chen said.

"There are so many browsers on the market now, and Firefox needs financial support to stand out."

"Of course I know that." Ben Goodger sighed dejectedly, "But we have started developing this project a long time ago, and we have spent too much time and energy so far. I don't want our hard work to end up like this."

"Just sell it at such a low price?" Zhang Chen added for him.

Ben Goodger took a sip of his tea awkwardly.

dream?

effort?

It’s just for those green dollars.

As long as others can afford the money, they are not prohibited from "selling" their ideals at a low price.

"4000 million US dollars, this is the highest price I can offer, but I have an additional condition." Zhang Chen did not care about the other party's asking price. "The headquarters will move to this building under our feet. You should have seen that the environment here is much better than your current office environment."

"Then my family"

"What I want is for this browser to become a Chinese product. As for you and your family, if you want to stay in the United States, you can continue to stay. If you want to come to China, I will settle your life and your children's studies."

Firefox is positioned as a global product. Zhang Chen just hopes that the database of this browser is in China. Nothing else matters.

Moreover, in the future, companies established based on the Firefox browser will also be listed on the Nasdaq, so it is not impossible to keep a branch in the United States.

Zhang Chen took great pains to purchase this browser not really to deal with Baidu.

Because on the 3rd of last month, Google-c was successfully listed on the Nasdaq, and the market response was good.

If nothing goes wrong, Google-a's shares will be listed in August this year.

When Google has a lot of cash, it will definitely go to war with the many search engines on the market.

The simplest way is to cooperate with browsers with higher market share in the world.

At its peak, Firefox had a market share of around 35%.

Before Google launches its own browser, Foxfire will be the best partner for Google. To put it bluntly, this cooperation means spending money.

If Zhang Chen remembers correctly, Google pays Firefox more than 3 million US dollars a year.

I just don't know if Firefox can still achieve such a terrifying market share after changing its skin to Chinese.

Of course, Zhang Chen can now influence Google's decision-making to some extent, and it is not impossible to put the distorted history back on track.

When Google launches its own browser around 09, the market share between the two will change. Finally, around 22, Google Chrome's market share will reach about 70%.

Firefox will drop to less than 5%
Not to mention abroad, at least in the country, Zhang Chen would definitely not allow such a thing to happen.

After all, in the search engine competition between Baidu and Google, Google also lost.

Although it is a good thing that the domestic engine won, Baidu does not treat its users as human beings.

Therefore, Firefox's future development path is basically determined.

It was during the honeymoon period of cooperation with Google that we developed a Chinese search engine and occupied the Chinese market.

In fact, Google also uses this approach.

While cooperating with Firefox, he secretly developed his own browser.

Zhang Chen can be said to have copied Google's development path. Although the order is somewhat reversed, as long as the operation is proper, there is a possibility of success.

Zhang Chen was thinking about the various development paths that Firefox would take after entering China, while Ben Goodger, who was sitting opposite him, raised his head after a fierce inner struggle.

He gritted his teeth and said, "I hope to be the CTO of this company!"

"Is this your final condition?" Zhang Chen raised his eyebrows and looked at him with a smile.

"Correct!"

Zhang Chen thought for a moment and nodded: "Okay, you are the most suitable one."

CTO, which means chief technology officer.

Even if Ben Goodger didn't say it, Zhang Chen would invite him to take the position later.

After all, this product was developed by this guy, and no one should understand it better than him.

Moreover, Firefox will need to go through multiple rounds of iterations before it can exert its due influence, so the importance of the initial team is self-evident.

"Crack!"

The crew of "Love", with Zhang Chen's voice, finally finished filming after more than three months of shooting.

"I want to take pictures too!"

When the final photo was being taken, a person who was not a member of the crew suddenly showed up.

After all the main creative staff members were in place, Liu Yifei squeezed in next to Zhang Chen, not even paying attention to Liu Xiaoli who was on the other side.

"You're not a member of this crew, why are you joining in the fun?"

"Who said that? I've done a lot of work on the crew in the past two months. Why can't I be considered a member of the crew?"

Liu Yifei said this without any hesitation.

During the past two months, she followed Zhang Chen around the crew, feeling like a little follower.

Many times, when the crew needed to assign some tasks to the assistant director, Liu Yifei was the one who solved them.

"But your summer job is really useful."

Zhang Chen smiled helplessly, put his arm around Liu Yifei's shoulders and looked at the camera together.

"Teacher Lan, Teacher Wu, we may have a chance to work together again in the future."

After taking the final photos, Zhang Chen politely invited the two veteran artists.

Zhang Chen also realized the professionalism of these two people during these three months.

Actors should be like them.

No matter what the outside world says, no matter how many times it has to be repeated, we will fulfill every requirement of director Zhang Chen conscientiously and responsibly.

Moreover, he can come up with some good ideas that Zhang Chen has never thought of at the appropriate time.

Zhang Chen is not sure whether other directors would like such an actor, but as a rookie director like him who is not very proficient in acting and filming, he still likes him very much.

"We would like to cooperate with you more, but it's good enough for a big boss like you to make such a movie. Do you want to continue to make movies in the future?"

Lan Tianye looked at Zhang Chen with a smile.

"Who knows what will happen in the future?"

"Well, let's talk about it later, hahaha."

The two veteran artists who had been in the crew for more than three months also got on the special car prepared by Zhang Chen after everyone in the crew changed their minds.

After these few months, they also missed their family a little.

Especially Wu Yanshu, who has an elderly partner who is seriously ill in bed at home.

Although Zhang Chen had promised to hire the best medical team to take care of his spouse, he was always a little worried when he was not by his side.

And after the filming of this movie, she felt more or less touched.

"Teacher Wu, movies are movies, and reality is reality."

Seeing that Wu Yanshu looked a little depressed, Zhang Chen also thought of a possibility.

He didn't want Wu Yanshu to be unable to act after filming this movie and do something that she would regret for the rest of her life.

"You are indeed a careful young man." Wu Yanshu smiled and said kindly, "Don't worry about me. I have been an actor for so many years. I can still distinguish between the on-screen and off-screen."

Zhang Chen also breathed a sigh of relief when he heard this.

After watching them leave, Zhang Chen turned around and looked at Liu Yifei who was still beside him: "Aunt Liu has left, why are you still staying here?"

"Do you find me annoying?"

"I"

When a woman asks this kind of question, she usually wants to feel more present, and the best way to do that is to say something nice.

But who is Zhang Chen? He was not serious for even a few seconds in front of Liu Yifei: "I'm going abroad to find my little sister, don't follow me."

"Tsk, Avril? Or Taylor Swift?"

"Ok?"

"I and I have a very good relationship with both of them now." Liu Yifei folded her arms and raised her head, giving Zhang Chen a proud expression.

"so?"

"Add me one!"

"You're crazy." Zhang Chen rolled his eyes. He didn't know who the little girl learned this from. "I'm going to check out the filming of another movie and do some other things. You can help me keep an eye on that variety show in China."

""singer"?"

"Well, since you are so familiar with them now, the job of receiving them will be left to you."

"You want me to be free labor again."

"Then I'll let someone else come?"

"no!"

"Oh, woman."

Zhang Chen patted Liu Yifei's head lightly and left the scene without looking back.

"Just wait and see, huh~" Liu Yifei made a face at Zhang Chen's back.

　I'm really becoming a beast.
　　I have to write another chapter today!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)